Never Stop Innovating

I cannot believe how quickly time flies. It's moving faster for me regardless of good times or bad, and I am wondering if this is just a "Mike D" observation, or does TIME in fact...accelerate as you get older? I'm thinking about time because it's been about 3 weeks since our last episode of DOHARDTHINGS. The concept of creating content is pretty easy to grasp, but I find the hard part is in the execution. It requires something more than want. It requires a habit.

I am a big fan of Seth Godin, and while I researched why I struggle with content creation, I found an article by Sara Connell where she asks him what he contributes his success to. His reply is pretty simple:

It's about:

    Showing up.
    
    Showing up for the right people.
    
    Showing up for the right people with generosity and intent.  To teach.

Seth's whole idea is...keep your overhead low, deliver often, be generous, be patient. It's going to be fine. It's so simple, it's genius. Don't overthink...just deliver. Ok...let's go then..

Meet Joe Chung

Last week, Joe Chung joined the podcast for a conversation. I've worked alongside Joe for over 4 years and have always admired his ability to think deeply and simply at the same time. He doesn't overcomplicate things, and he isn't afraid to share his opinions. I believe that comes from a foundation of competence, curiosity, and connection. He talks to a lot of people and I get the feeling he learns as much from them as they learn from him.

Joe joined AWS as Enterprise Strategist & Evangelist in November 2016, working with enterprise technology executives to share his own experiences and those of other customers, to help them develop strategies for rapidly taking advantage of cloud capabilities to keep pace with innovation and build for the future. Joe believes cloud services are the digital materials that will transform how we work, live and do business. He likens AWS to a building-supply store for the digital age, full of the variety of tools that enterprises need now and well down the road, and believes we’re just beginning to scratch the surface of what the cloud can do. His LinkedIn profile features a link to a number of blog posts that illustrate his thinking...and he closes each article with the tag line "Never Stop Innovating", and I love it.

So...What is Innovation?

Simple enough question...but if you do a quick search on Google, everyone has an opinion and there is no SINGLE definition. It's as if the term innovation itself is innovating. So, let me add my two cents...For me, innovation is never being satisfied, always striving to improve or make things better. It's even better if you are doing it based off of feedback you are receiving from customers, friends, colleagues and family. The people that matter, who are providing feedback about things that might be help them achieve a constantly changing desired outcome. Innovation for progression.

I am fully committed to a constant state of innovation, with my personal and my professional life. It's a way of preventing the feeling of "Being Settled". Joe talks about using mental models to deal with complex problems...drawing comparisons between the things you DO understand, with the BIG THINKING you need to be doing to go to another level. It's a way to close that gap. Everyone has an IDEA of how things work in the world - but who says that way is the right way...or even the best way?

Nothing is easy

Nothing worth doing SHOULD be easy. Most of what we want to do requires an investment in education. Learning to be curious can be expensive and time consuming...and it can be difficult to invest in new learning when everyone is so focused on their day jobs, all wrapped up in their present self, with no time to consider the impact to their future self. But we MUST keep an eye toward being more agile in the future. In fact, Werner Vogels - Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at Amazon - said as much himself;

“10 years ago I never would have said that we would be where we are today,” admitted Vogels, who believes that that in order to stay on top, the key is to continue innovating: “If we stop innovating, we’ll be dead in 10 years.”

So, what makes a good business leader in the age of innovation? Someone who has the temerity to leap into the abyss, because it's something they haven't done before. At some point...you have to jump. In our increasingly technologically capable world, businesses and their leaders need to be able to adapt to keep up, and the best way to do this is by fostering a culture that can innovate.

How do you eat an elephant? (Your next BIG THING)

One bite at a time. Honestly, you can spend days and weeks calculating the best way to start something, and planning it all out, but meanwhile...you may have a colleague tackling their own elephant...and they just started taking bites...and before you know it, they are 25% done...and you are still dragging your feet. We touch on this in the episode and I think we are broaching a subject that I will want to drill more deeply into, because the "elephant in your mind" is the Big Thinking that we all struggle with...the thing that scares us. Joe shares his thinking on how he overcomes it.

Please, check out the Episode on the DOHARDTHINGS YouTube Channel - and please subscribe. Maybe it will help you build your own mental model to help you do your own Big Thinking and finally do that thing you have been wanting to do, no matter how difficult you think it is.

Please...leave comments and suggestions on what subjects you are interested in, and what type of guests you would like to see on the channel. Help me innovate!

I think I will borrow Joe Chung's tagline...Never Stop Innovating. So what if it is hard?

#DOHARDTHINGS.

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